Per Kudsk

Context: Chemical pesticides remain central to agricultural productivity but pose well documented risks to human health and ecosystems. While Integrated Pest Management (IPM) offers a more sustainable alternative, its adoption remains limited, partly due to the complex trade-offs that are not easily quantified and compared.,Objective: This study presents the IPM Self-Assessment Tool (ISAT), a web-based application designed to enable transparent comparison of crop protection scenarios at the field level, integrating environmental, human health, agronomic, and economic indicators.,Methods: A new harmonized pesticide risk indicator for Europe (PLEU – Pesticide Load Indicator for Europe) was developed. The PLEU covers 41 hazard metrics across three sub-indicators (Environmental Fate, Ecotoxicity, and Human Health). The PLEU was integrated into the ISAT alongside indicators for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and production costs, calculated using life cycle based methods. The tool was developed using data from ten European countries covering eight crops, with scenarios described by regional specialists and validated by farm advisors.,Results and conclusions: The PLEU was calculated for 502 active ingredients (441 synthetic, 61 biopesticides) across eight pesticide groups. A case study on winter wheat in Germany showed that, relative to conventional practice, an IPM scenario replacing herbicide use by mechanical weeding reduced pesticide risk by up to 75%, but at the cost of GHG emissions comparable to the conventional scenario. The ISAT enables users to identify risk-driving active ingredients and explore lower-risk alternatives, supporting informed decision-making for IPM adoption.,Significance: To our knowledge, ISAT is the first freely accessible, web-based tool integrating a harmonized pesticide risk indicator with GHG emissions and economic outcomes within a single, comprehensive field level scenario comparison. It provides a transparent decision-support platform that can help farmers, advisors, and researchers make informed decisions when designing and comparing crop protection strategies across diverse European cropping systems.

CONTEXT: Reducing pesticide risk in agriculture is a key policy objective within the European Union, yet comprehensive spatial assessments of such risks have been limited by data availability.OBJECTIVE: This study aims to quantify and map pesticide risk across EU regions and to assess the relative contribution of environmental conditions, agricultural land use, and agricultural management practices to spatial variation in pesticide risk.METHODS: We use pesticide use data to quantify potential pesticide risk for the environment and human health through the Pesticide Load Index. We then map pesticide risk across 214 EU NUTS2 regions and analyze the contribution of environmental, land-use, and management-related drivers to spatial variation in risk.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Pesticide risk is highly heterogeneous across Europe, with clear hotspots in Southern and Southeastern regions, particularly in Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Spain. Agricultural land use is the most important factor explaining variation in pesticide risk, followed by management practices such as organic farming and regenerative practices. Management factors play a relatively larger role in Southern regions compared to Northern regions. Overall, results highlight the strong structural role of land use in shaping pesticide risk patterns.SIGNIFICANCE: The findings highlight the need for targeted monitoring and regulatory action and demonstrate the importance of land-use– and management-oriented policies for addressing pesticide risk across Europe.

European agrifood systems face many challenges and dilemmas regarding sustainability, resilience and competitiveness. Through consultations with scientific experts, we identified five systemic lock-ins (governance and policy fragmentation; behavioural and dietary challenges; political economy and market dynamics; unaccountability and environmental degradation; disruption and unpredictability as the new norm) hindering agrifood systems transformation. Based on concrete examples, we propose five guiding principles that, in various combinations, can help address lock-ins and guide effective changes towards more healthy and sustainable food systems. Their successful implementation requires strong, experience-inspired, science-based political and business leadership supported by a revised research and innovation agenda.

Ambitious policy goals to reduce pesticide use and risks have been established at global and regional levels. Here, we provide an assessment of the expected effects of such a global transformation of agricultural pest management. We develop a holistic assessment framework covering economic, human health, food security, social, and environmental effects and conduct a global survey with 473 experts from key disciplines and major agricultural production regions. This is an important step to identify leverage points for advancing pesticide policies and focusing future research efforts. Our results demonstrate that transforming agricultural pest management could be an important nexus for addressing multiple sustainability challenges. We find the highest expected benefits for the environmental and human health domains and the lowest for the economic and food safety domains. For regions with low income and low pesticide use, we find higher benefits and less trade-offs of the transformation than for intensive production systems in Europe and North America. Finally, a transformation is not free of costs and our results indicate that it will require a combination of new and locally adapted pest management solutions, research and support for their implementation on the ground, and an enabling policy environment.

The effectiveness of pesticide reduction policies in the European Union (EU) depends critically on robust, scientifically grounded indicators that can reliably monitor pesticide-related risks across Member States. The Pesticide Load Indicator (PLI), developed in Denmark in the 2000s, offers a transparent and policy-relevant framework for assessing pesticide risk. Although it has successfully supported Denmark’s national strategies for over a decade and is drawing attention in other EU countries, several methodological limitations hinder its broader applicability. This letter identifies five such limitations and proposes corresponding updates to enhance the indicator’s scientific robustness and scalability across the EU: (1) consistent hazard assessment across compartments, (2) precautionary treatment of missing data, (3) updated hazard metric selection, (4) harmonised normalisation procedures and (5) a statistically grounded weighting protocol. These methodological updates aim to establish a harmonised PLI suitable for EU-wide policy applications, such as fiscal instruments (e.g. differentiated taxation based on hazard levels) and pesticide risk assessments.

This study aimed at testing the effectiveness of novel combinations of chemical and physical methods to control Prosopis juliflora, an invasive weed in the Moshi and Simanjiro districts of Nothern Tan-zania. Six different treatments including manual uprooting, glyphosate, bark chop with chemical application, two separate chemical mixtures and control were tested in a total of 32 plots, which represented two land use types (grazing land and farmland) found in the two districts. Each plot covered 20m×30m plot area. Two response variables (stem count and tree volume) were recorded to compare weed population density before and after treatment six months later. An analysis of the untreated control plots, showed that the inherent growth potential of P. juliflora was higher in Moshi than in Simanjiro district. The number of stems increased during the experiment for all six treatments showing that the P. juliflora population had not yet reached the local carrying capacity. For the manual control treatment, the increase was reduced compared to the untreated control. For all other treatments, the increase in stem count was on par with that in the untreated control or even higher. Thus, we conclude that only manual uprooting had a controlling effect but not to the extent that it eradicated P. juliflora. Thus, it is for P. juliflora as for weed control in general: weed control must be an ongoing effort.

There has been a longstanding and contentious debate about the future of glyphosate use in the European Union (EU). In November 2023, the European Commission approved the renewal of the use registration for glyphosate for a further 10 years. Nevertheless, the EU Farm to Fork strategy calls for a 50% reduction in pesticide use by 2030. In November 2022, the European Weed Research Society organised a 2 day workshop to identify critical glyphosate uses in current EU cropping systems and to review the availability of glyphosate alternatives. Workshop participants identified four current, critical uses in EU cropping systems; control and management of perennial weeds, weed control in conservation agriculture, vegetation management in tree and vine crops and herbicide resistance management. There are few herbicide alternatives that provide effective, economic, broad‐spectrum control of weeds, particularly perennial weeds. Mechanical weed control, and in particular, soil cultivation is the most obvious glyphosate alternative. However, this is not possible in conservation agriculture systems and, in general, increased soil cultivation has negative impacts for soil health. Emerging technologies for precision weed control can enable more targeted use of glyphosate, greatly reducing use rates. These technologies also facilitate the use and development of alternative targeted physical weed control (e.g. tillage, lasers, electricity), reducing the energy and environmental costs of these approaches. In tree crops, the use of organic and inorganic mulches can reduce the need for glyphosate use. In general, reduced use of glyphosate will require an even greater focus on integrated weed management to reduce weed establishment in agroecosystems, increase weed management diversity and limit the use of alternative resistance‐prone herbicides.

Herbicide use in agriculture revolutionized weed control and contributed to global food security since the launch of 2,4-D in 1945. However, challenges are arising that threaten the continued effectiveness and viability of herbicides, as well as their acceptance as a tool for weed management. In this special issue, “Seventy-five years of synthetic herbicide use in agriculture: Will there be 100?”, experts discuss the history of herbicide use worldwide, the contribution of herbicides to sustainable food production, the contributions that private [...] Herbicide use in agriculture revolutionized weed control and contributed to global food security since the launch of 2,4-D in 1945. However, challenges are arising that threaten the continued effectiveness and viability of herbicides, as well as their acceptance as a tool for weed management. In this special issue, “Seventy-five years of synthetic herbicide use in agriculture: Will there be 100?”, experts discuss the history of herbicide use worldwide, the contribution of herbicides to sustainable food production, the contributions that private